Gear and Fragging in Los Angeles

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Gear and Fragging in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES – If you tried to sum up the games industry according to E3, you might be forced to quote lyrics from Andrea True Connection: "More More More."

Five years ago, many would have expected the games market to narrow down to two consoles and one handheld by now.

Instead, ample room seems to exist for three consoles and three handhelds, with space left over for mobile-phone games, web games and joysticks with ancient arcade games programmed into them as well. Any industry with room for sub-niches of the dance-pad market is either doing something very right or something very, very wrong.

Consoles

The big news from E3 was, without question, the unveiling of next-generation consoles from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Revolution were presented to the world with much fanfare and few surprises. Each boasts improved graphics, wireless connectivity, backward compatibility and online integration: The feature checklists are nearly identical across the consoles.

At the first E3 in 1995, the Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn were considered contenders to knock newcomer Sony out of the market. More recently, Microsoft was the dark horse with the Xbox.

This time around, we have the same players as the last generation, and nothing giving a clear technological advantage to any one console. Instead of a battle of technology, the next couple of years are shaping up to be a battle of marketing, a much less exciting prospect.

Inevitably, the bulk of the attention on upcoming games goes to sequels, and this year is no exception. Summed up: If you and at least two other people enjoyed a game, there's a sequel on the way.

Lovers of quirky Japanese games will be happy to see I (Heart) Katamari on the way, while fans of fighting games will look forward to Soul Calibur III.

First-person-shooter lovers will be able to frag in 2006 with Unreal Tournament 2007, and role-players have a nice big number VIII waiting for them in the latest installment of the Dragon Quest series. And, of course, the pointy-eared Zelda juggernaut keeps rolling on, with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess enchanting fans, particularly those who never warmed to the adorability of Wind Waker.

On the movie front, no film past or present seems safe from morphing into a game. Upcoming action and fantasy films like Batman Begins and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe are a given, but it doesn't end there.

Atari is returning to the green-tinged well with The Matrix: Path of Neo, and Activision is banking on the continued popularity of DreamWorks' signature ogre with its release of Shrek SuperSlam.

The most startling movie tie-in, however, is Electronic Arts' upcoming video-game version of The Godfather. It would be hard to come up with a less likely adaptation than My Dinner With Andre, but EA clearly feels it has a winner on its hands.

Finding a genuinely new game is more of a challenge, but they're out there.

Spore is the best hope for those who want something they haven't seen before. Will Wright, the mind behind Spore, has proven his chops time and again. Details are sketchy right now, but if anyone has the ability to deliver on the promise of a game that moves from single-celled organisms to an entire galaxy, it's Wright.

Much of the innovation on the show floor came from Japanese publishers, often in titles for the DS. Nintendogs from Nintendo will let you use the stylus to put the "pet" in "virtual pet," and Electroplankton turns the DS into a surreal music-making machine. The DS is transformed into a courtroom with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, while Trauma Center: Under the Knife converts it into an ER.

Handhelds

On the portable-game front, Nintendo seems to be sincere about its two-device strategy, hyping the DS and the Game Boy Advance platforms with equal fervor. While a voice-over-IP offering and a selection of wireless games for the DS show an interest in expanding that platform, the release of the Game Boy Micro indicates the company is not expecting developers to give up on single-screen handhelds just yet.

Meanwhile, the PlayStation Portable has been overshadowed by Sony's focus on the PlayStation 3. There's no shortage of games on the way for the PSP, but most of them are from publishers dutifully moving hit franchises over to the small screen. Still, those who want to be able to play a game about stealing cars while actually stealing a car will likely enjoy Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for the PSP, on the way from Rockstar Games.

Meanwhile, Nokia's N-Gage gaming phone still waits on the sidelines for ... something. Nokia had a nice big booth, new games on display and astonishing amounts of indifference from E3 attendees. But Nokia's not giving up yet.

Accessories

Enough accessories for portable and handheld systems exist to turn them into immobile entertainment centers, and indeed that seemed to be the idea in a lot of cases.

Nyko, for instance, is coming out with the Theater Experience for the PSP, giving the handheld a hard case, speakers and an adjustable stand. All of which makes it less of a handheld and more of a miniature tabletop system.

The third-party controller market looks like a cartoon chameleon from the '50s, changing colors rapidly in an attempt to stay alive. Controllers for sports teams, specific games and numerous camouflage patterns – in case you ever need to play Halo 2 while being shot at by jungle snipers – were everywhere.

This isn't particularly notable in itself, but it does raise the question of what's going to happen to the accessory market once Bluetooth controllers become standard. With cheap knockoffs more difficult to churn out, makers of accessories may have to concentrate more on quality than color choice.